Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Life goes On

"When people have tried everything and have discovered that nothing works, they will tend to revert to what they know best -- which will often be the tribe, the totem, or the taboo."--Christopher Hitchens

Had a good birthday yesterday. My little brother phoned in the late afternoon from Indiana and we talked for a couple hours. He has no computer and doesn't especially want one so the telephone is his choice as his main method of communication. I hadn't talked with him for a few years and was surprised to find that he is now fully retired. He's 68 years old.

He told me his wife, Darlene, has a tablet and I gave him my email address to give to her, and she sent me an email last night. I replied with the picture of Mike, Tim, and myself taken after Tim's graduation and Ph.D presentation. I'm so glad that this new form of communication with them is now open.

I don't know how much longer I am going to be able to walk my minimum of two miles a day. Yesterday after arriving back home from walking my right hip and upper right thigh began hurting pretty badly. A two hour nap took away most of the pain but left in its place a dull ache. It's still there today but I intend to go out and walk again in a few minutes. I hate to think of not being able to continue my daily walk, as it has become a goodly part of my life.

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Did You Know . . .?

The mouth of a jellyfish is also its anus.

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HISTORICAL EVENT

On this day in 1956 The United States conducted the first airborne test of an improved hydrogen bomb, dropping it from a plane over the tiny island of Namu in the Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean. The successful test indicated that hydrogen bombs were viable airborne weapons and that the arms race had taken another giant leap forward. The massive open-air blast in 1956 caused concerns among scientists and environmentalists about the effects of such testing on human and animal life.

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WORD FOR TODAY

kithnoun1. acquaintances, friends, neighbors, or the like; persons living in the same general locality and forming a more or less cohesive group.2. a group of people living in the same area and forming a culture with a common language, customs, economy, etc., usually endogenous.

Tony Goldwyn is an American actor and director. He portrayed the villain Carl Bruner in Ghost, Colonel Bagley in The Last Samurai, and the voice of the title character of the Disney animated film Tarzan. He stars in the ABC drama Scandal, as Fitzgerald Grant III, President of the United States.

Michaela McManus is an American actress, best known for her portrayals of Lindsey Strauss on the television series One Tree Hill and A.D.A. Kim Greylek on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. She recently starred as Tara on NBC series Awake.

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"The struggle between 'for' and 'against' is the mind's worst disease."
--Sengcan